Update: SAF avoids ban for comments on Howard Webb

Following up on my article about SAF facing yet more charges following his comments about Howard Webb prior to the Chelsea fixture, the FA has today announced that Ferguson has been ‘warned about his future conduct’ and avoided a charge. Too right! How can someone be persecuted for stating in the pre-match media that he was happy with the referee choice? The only reason that the FA didn’t slap a ban on SAF this time was because Carlo Ancelotti got caught up in the mixture by breaking the same rule and one couldn’t be banned without the other, so the FA held back.

A case in point of the double standards at the FA came after Manchester City beat Stoke City 1-0 in the FA Cup final, when Michah Richards and Mario Balotelli were both seen swearing live on national television:

You cannot possibly tell me that this is so drastically different from Wayne Rooney’s camera saga at West Ham in which he received a ban. Will Richards and Balotelli suffer the same fate? Probably not, they don’t play for United.